Bottle o Smoke

By insisting that the crisis in the Middle East is about
Terrorism, George W. Bush Jr. clouds the real issues, which are how much the United States should do for Israel and what should be done with Iran.

I read an article the other day, where a year after 9/11,
Richard Armitage, then the U.S secretary of state was asked, with its war on
terrorism, what the U.S panned to do with Hizballah. “Their time will come” he stated firmly.
“There is no question about it, they have a blood debt to us, and we’re not
going to forget it”

The blood debt that Armitage mentioned is the 1983 bombing
of the U.S Marine barracks in
Beirut that killed 241 U.S service members. The
U.S believes that Hizballah was responsible for this. Going back to Armitage’s statement, “their
time” appears to be now.

By helping Israel’s
ferocious offensive against Hizballah in Lebanon,Washington was taken “a forceful
swing at the militia, even if it’s by proxy”. It’s not about avenging those marines killed in the bombings in 1983 of
course, it’s about fighting the global war on terrorism.

After 9/11 Dubya declared the war on terrorism would be
fought not just against Al-Qaeda, but also against “every terrorist group of
global reach”, Hamas and Hizballah included. However Lisa Beyer of Time magazine questions this. First of all, as grand and promising as
Bush’s statement is, realistically this will not happen and for good
cause: The U.S simply doesn not have the
troops, money, or political will to fight a war against, as Michael Moore put
so simply as “a noun”. Because of
this, Beyer states that it naturally makes sense to “limit its hit list tot eh
groups that actually threaten it”.  

Beyer states that Hizballah and Hamas, do not do that
now.

The extent that they are terrorizing the U.S falls solely on
the fact that Hizballah is attacking
Israel,
an ally of the United States. But to think that Hizballah or Hamas will be
behind the next 9/11 “costs the U.S credibility, risks driving terrorist groups
that aren’t allied into alliance and obscures the real issues at hand in the
middle east: how do you soften up
militias who oppose Israel’s existence?”

However Bush believes that Hizballah has reached
international heights, as two weeks ago he announced to the world that
Hizballah was linked to the militants that staged the London subway bombing in July. This statement would link Hizballah to the
same mind set as Al-Qaeda, which is global Jihad; Boom-Boom. This is not the case, Hizballah’s mission is
principally to defend
Lebanon from the Jewish State, they simply want to see an Islamic rule in Lebanon. The Al-Qaeda thinks much bigger. Moreover, the Al-Qaeda are Salafists;
Sunni. Hizballah are Shi’ite, which
means they hate each other. A lot.

That is not to say that Hizballah are not terrorists
however. The formation of Hizballah and
their rise to political power is an ugly tale. They established their terrorist resume in 1980 by kidnapping 50
foreigners in Lebanon,
including 18 U.S citizens, and killing two of them. In 1992 they bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and in 1994 a
Jewish cultural center there, killing 95. Hamas, also a nasty organization, has no known ties to Al-Qaeda. Moreover, they do not reach beyond its home
front and does not target Americans. Its
agenda is local. 

With  this said, the
U.S are right in stepping in and aiding in the peace talks, but they are wrong
in telling the world that this is all for their war on terror. There are no American Troops in Lebanon, “It is Israelthat is paying the price in
Blood and treasure”. The main question
is how much the U.S should do for Israel, and what in the world are they going
to do with Iran, who is backing Hizballah financially. Because of Iran,
the fundamental problem the U.S has with Hizballah is that it refuses to stop
attacking America’s
Principal ally in the region, and Hizballah has the means to keep
fighting.